Days 6 & 7 – When will we ever learn ?. . .

The ironic lyrics from Pete Seeger’s 1955 politically charged timeless classic “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” will forever ring true. As long as the very worst traits of humanity continue to pass from generation to generation to generation, then peace and harmony throughout the world’s peoples will remain a hopeless cause.

Day 6 – We end today’s journey at Camping La Forêt-de-Tessé – a little gem tucked away in the Charente countryside. In 2013 and after seven months touring Europe, ex-MOHOers Mark and Hungarian wife Ildiko decided to buy an overrun plot of land. Six years later they opened their ten pitch site.

Immaculate pitches matched with immaculate facilites

Earlier in the day, with no sign of a Mr T, we stop off to pick up some supplies (mostly wine), from an Intermarché supermarket. All goes well. The trolley is chocker-block with lots of food (wine is officially designated as being food in France) There’s just one last item we need. Some wet wipes. AKA lingettes humides. [wipe wets] Trolleying up and down every aisle we find no sign of any sort of cleaning product. Very strange. We ask un-elper – the reply “Vous les trouverez sous le chapiteau. La-bas, dans le coin” did us no favours. We’d just come from le coin. Understanding some French, but not all, can often be very misleading. Mr Google Translate said ‘chapiteau’ meant Big Top. As in circus Big Top!? . . . Was she trying to make clowns of a couple of Brits?

Le Chapiteau! Discovered down a narrow corridor. A temporary outdoor structure.

Day 7 – we visit Oradour-sur-Glane. A village community right up until the massacre of its 642 innocent civilians on 10th June 1944, by a German Waffen SS Company. Only six escape to tell the tale.

The destroyed village was never rebuilt. It now stands as a museum. Left as it was, to become a permanent memorial.

190 men, 247 women and 205 children

One by one, their names and age at death are softly spoken throughout every day. Over and over again. Forever remembered.

Not a single building left unscathed
Every image speaks a million words
Everything was torched – including the villagers
No heaven to be seen at the top of this . . .
From the cemetery, the new memorial column looks down and over the past
Lost, but forever loved . . .

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